Routing devices within a network, often referred to as routers, maintain routing information that describes available routes through the network. Upon receiving an incoming packet, the router examines information within the packet and forwards the packet in accordance with the routing information. To maintain an accurate representation of the network, routers typically exchange routing information in accordance with one or more defined routing protocols, such as the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).
Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) techniques may be used to engineer traffic patterns within Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Using MPLS, a source device can request a path through a network to a destination device, i.e., a Label Switched Path (LSP). An LSP defines a distinct path through the network to carry MPLS packets from the source device to a destination device. Each router along an LSP allocates a label and propagates the label to the closest upstream router along the path. Routers along the path cooperatively perform MPLS operations to forward the MPLS packets along the established path. A variety of protocols exist for establishing LSPs, such as the Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) and the Resource Reservation Protocol with Traffic Engineering extensions (RSVP-TE).
A plurality of routing devices within a network may be arranged as a ring network. In some examples, a ring network may operate as an access network to customer networks. That is, a ring network may operate to provide fast packet-based transport of communications between customer networks connected to the ring network, and/or provide the customer networks access to public network, such as the Internet or other provider networks.